Swimming in a plastic sea

Karl Benediktsson, May 6, 2017

I realised the other day that I am really just a little plastic human figure, living in a plastic world. My little plastic country is surrounded by a sea of plastic. In short: my life – and that of everybody else too – is saturated by plastic.

Every year, some 3–400 million tons of plastics are produced. At least eight million of these end up every year in the sea. Once there, the sun's ultraviolet radiation and the energy of the waves work together at breaking up the plastic materials, right down to tiny particles that find their way into living beings and harm them. A recent estimate is that some 51 trillion of plastic micro-particles are swimming in the sea right now, or five hundred times the number of stars in the Milky Way. Of course these numbers are way to large to have any meaning for us ordinary (plastic) people.

Plastics were introduced in the industrial West around the mid-20th century and immediately became a symbol of the 'throwaway economy' of mass consumption. But nowadays, around 60% of all plastic that ends up in the ocean is thought to come from only five countries – all of which are Asian. These are China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Why is this the case?

There are several reasons for it. First, all these five countries are moving rapidly towards a similar pattern of consumption as we know from our own society in Western Europe. But treatment of waste is limited in many places. Only a fraction of waste is collected on a regular basis by municipalities and moved to appropriate locations. Or not so – where official agencies are weak, waste contractors are often tempted to simply dump the waste in places where nobody is looking, in order to save on transport costs.

On the other hand, a very lively market for recyclables exists in Asia and elsewhere. Collectors, usually from the poorest parts of society, collect whatever can be resold for recycling. These people really do important work. The buyers of the waste are important too. This writer recently visited the recycling company Wongpanit, the largest of its kind in Thailand. An army of people was at work in the facility, sorting all kinds of plastic paterials, right down to the drinking straws that accompany every plastic bottle sold in that wonderful country. The firm has succeeded in making waste of incredibly many kinds into a marketable product. But some things are simply not economical for those collecting and sorting waste. In Indonesia I watched a bare-footed collector with a large sack on his back pick up plastic bottles from the streets. The plastic bags he left behind: they are not worth much at the end of the collector's long day. A lot of plastic bags therefore end up in the ocean. And in fact a lot of the plastic bottles too.

In the five countries mentioned previously – and in all East and Southeast Asia in fact – the middle class is growing rapidly, and with it new consumption patterns. In Thailand for example, tremendous quantities of takeaway food are sold on the street, packaged in plastic of course. The persistent poverty by in parts of the population is however also in a way the source of the overwhelming amount of plastic. Limited buying power of the poor leads companies to sell their products in tiny and cheap quantities. In Indonesia this is very evident: tiny amounts of washing powder, sugar, coffee and other daily necessities are prominent in shops and markets, of course wrapped in plastic. Once the small sachet is emptied, it more often than not ends up at the mercy of winds and water. The trail inevitably leads down to the sea; this is the natural way of things.

Speaking of coffee: think for a moment about the strange development here in Iceland and other countries, where coffee makers that need single-use plastic containers. A very strange development this – in the wrong direction! According to figures from environmental NGO Landvernd, each Icelander uses about 40 kg of plastic packaging yeach year. The best thing would of course be to use much less. But at the very least the rich Iceland has no excuse not to prevent plastics from entering the ocean. Individuals, firms and public authorities need to join forces and stop swimming in the plastic sea. Iceland does not need to be Plasticland.

(First published 6 May 2017 at Umhverfisfréttir)